First day of school in Chico brings smiles, chalk, wrought iron

CHICO &GT;&GT; Colorful chalk messages, bright smiling faces and wrought-iron fences were part of the first day of school on some of the Chico Unified School District campuses Monday.

The first day of school found CUSD Superintendent Kelly Staley playing a helper role at Chapman School.

Staley was shuttling documents around the campus Monday morning. She said all of the district administrators were assigned to a school to help in whatever way they could.

The superintendent said she saw lots of parents and "lots of smiling, happy children. It's a happy place."

The district is tentatively hoping there might be a slight rise in enrollment this year.

Staley said if the student population does climb, it could be because of the "transitional kindergarten" program. This is the third year of the program that allows 4-year-olds to attend what amounts to "pre-kindergarten."

Students in the transitional program will have two years in kindergarten. She said the popularity of the program has grown each year.

Across town at Pleasant Valley High School, students arrived on campus to find something that if done at other times, in different places, using different tools, would not have been the source of happiness.

PV Principal John Shepherd said the event is called "condoned graffiti" and it allows seniors to express themselves in "G-rated" messages, mainly inscribed on the pavement in the "senior quad."

On Sunday night , seniors armed with sidewalk chalk and some blue and white streamers descended on campus to leave their mark.

Shepherd said the exercise in "respectful fun" is kind of a "litmus test to see what kind of kids we are going to get as seniors."

The principal was in attendance as the artwork was being applied.

The quad messages were as diverse as their producers.

"You miss 100 percent of shots you don't take," said one message attributed to hockey great Wayne Gretzky.

Another of the simple postings read, "Seniors will make H15tory."

Playing with the class of 2015 reference was a big part of the condoned graffiti.

One chalk art author wrote, "K15S my class."

Stepping away from the topic of the Class of 2015, a pavement chalker drew a pair of stylized body outlines reaching toward one another on the pavement, with the inscription, "This is the spot where love DIED."

A simple and clearly heartfelt message said, "We made it, 2015."

Another change to the PV campus is rather less warm and fuzzy than the chalk messages.

A six-foot-high wrought-iron fence is part of a series of fences that circle roughly 75 percent of the campus, explained Shepherd.

He said the fence, which was fabricated by PV welding students and students from the "Youth Build" program at Fairview High School, encloses large areas of the main campus..

Shepherd said the black metal fence, which went up in June, was to create "a little more safe environment" on campus.

Superintendent Staley said the PVHS fence was motivated by the same desire to control outsider access to campus that prompted a decision at Chico High School to lock a gate that provided pedestrian-bicycle access to a path that bisects that campus.

She said fences are part of the facilities master plan for more and more schools.

Staley said the goal is to make sure people who come onto campus are funneled through the school's main office.

She called it a "sign of the times."

"There are people you probably don't want hanging out with our high school kids or your elementary school kids as well," she said.

Staley said she personally likes the wrought-iron fences and finds them more ornamental than chain-link fences.